The Reagan Dems were neocons not liberals

[dameocrat67]

Carter lost because of Reagan Democrats aka neocons were pissed off at him over passivity on the Iran hostage crisis.

The idea that it had anything to do with Kennedy cultist or Anderson or liberal hatred of Carter is historical revisionism.

Kennedy voters were not pumas and voted for Carter in the general. Anderson attracted mostly moderate republicans and did not create the margin of error in the general anyway, and liberals liked Carter.

[robcon]

1. I think Kennedy's challenge 'enabled' Dems to abandon Carter.

You have your terminology/dates wrong: "Reagan Democrats" showed up in the 1984 landslide election against Mondale (Reagan Dems were largely union members who voted for Reagan) not in 1980 election against Carter.

There were no Reagan Dems in 1980 - Carter lost the way most elections are won or lost: he lost the independents, but he carried the Dems.

[dameocrat67]

3. There were definately neocons in 1980. They were also pissed off

at him for the Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt. They were supporters of Scoop Jackson. The union element came into play with unions in the defense industry.

Carter did not lose liberal democrats. He lost war hawks.

[robcon]

5. I disagree. He lost independents in 1980

Of course he did not lose true liberals - he carried Democrats handily. He lost independents in 1980, neither Dems nor Repubs - whose votes determine the outcome of most elections.

[dameocrat67]

6. I disagree but if that is true you cant claim liberals were responsible

for Carters loss.

[robcon]

23. Of course liberls were not responsible for Carter's loss. Liberals voted for Carter.

It was the loss of independents that led to Carter's loss.

Independents usually (except in the occasional landslide) determine the winner of a presidential election.

[dameocrat67]

7. I would also point out that the social conservative dems you speak

of or prolife dems preferred Carter in 1980. I remember this clearly as my family is catholic and the church was pushing us to vote for Carter in the caucuses because Kennedy was antilife. Kennedy supported public funds to women who wanted abortions and Carter did not.

So I do not see how you can claim it was social conservatives that caused Carters loss, then claim Kennedy was a factor.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Kenedy supported the right of choice in reproductive issues

You call that 'anti-life'? That is a creepy phrase.

[dameocrat67]

12. no the church said he was antilife and was pushing for Carter

that is a fact. The poster said Kennedy liberals trashed carter then said it was social conservatives but social conservative perferred Carter because Carter would not publically fund abortion. I was not stating my personal opinion, and you probably know this.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. See, I'd say it that way then. I'd say the idiot chruch attacked

Kennedy for supporting choice. I would not say 'kennedy was anti-life'. I'd never use that false and loaded term at all.
I am not a Catholic. I wonder if you have any idea how it sounds to others, calling someone 'anti life'? I say it is hate speech. To say a person is opposed to life? To me that is a vicious attack of the first order.

[dameocrat67]

17. I was ten years old at the time and my quote marks dont work as I have an old

laptop with keys missing.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. You are ten no more.

The church opposed him for favoring choice. No quote marks needed, because it says the same thing without the rhetorical load. You typed 'because he was anti life'. Not 'because they called him anti life for favoring choice'.

[dameocrat67]

20. you are hijacking the thread with nitpicking n/t

n/t

[midnight]

4. How can unions vote Reagan anything?

[Warren Stupidity]

8. The death spiral in the rust belt was well underway in '80

white working class voters, many of them working in unionized industries, were losing their jobs, had been stuffed full of 'moral majority' archie bunkerist idiocy by the nixon mob, and were in a nationalist froth from the iran hostage 'crisis'. They were ripe for the picking and they got plucked.

[dameocrat67]

9. The teamsters did because the republicans promised not to investigate

their mafia compromised leadership like Jimmy Hoffa, and the Defense industry unions in California broke for Reagan. Most others did not.

[midnight]

2. I suppose that Carter had us within months of being oil free was

was freaking some of these people out, and so they set up a deal not to have the hostages released until they put Reagan into power....

[Bluenorthwest]

10. "Reagan Democrats" is an oxymoron about a moron

Those who vote Republican are Republicans. No such thing as a Democrat who votes for Republicans, especially not for Rapmaster Ronnie.

[woo me with science]

13. Many "Reagan Democrats" are Third Way Democrats now. nt

[dameocrat67]

14. yep

Obama is a reagan dem and proud of it. Looks to him for inspiration on everything. That was why during the budget talks he said WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO!. Note he did not look to FDR, or JFK, or Jimmy Carter or any dem, just Reagan.

[bluestate10]

15. Regan democrats are conservatives, they have a mixed up sense

of what being an american means, as did Reagan.

[emulatorloo]

18. 1. Reagan Dems were conservative voters. 2. Reagan manipulated Hostage crisis.

[SanchoPanza]

21. There is never one reason for a political outcome.

57% of self-identified liberals voted for Carter in '80, compared to 70% in '76. He also dropped 9% in support from self-identified moderates, 6% among self-identified conservatives.

A variety of factors contributed to Carter's loss; stagflation alienating most voters, the hostage crisis created a cloud of doubt over his administration, his reinstating of draft registration alienated college students, the Christian Right eroded Carter's largest base of Southern evangelicals, and, yes, there was most certainly disaffection from the left. Carter tried to win them back by campaigning hard against Reagan, focusing on his conservative radicalism, but it didn't help much. Even leftist dove McCarthy ended up supporting Reagan.

One could rank these different factors, I suppose, and Kennedy's primary challenge would likely rank low by an honest measurement, but mostly because the left, as a whole, were far less prone toward myopic stupidity in 1980 then they were in, say, 1968. One cannot argue with a straight face that the RFK-McCarthy Axis within the Democratic Party did not hand the Presidency to Richard Nixon that year.

And this is likely where one finds the origin of the so-called "Reagan Democrats." These were Nixon's hard-hats and "silent majority," a kind of reactionary white populism built primarily on resentment of the New Left and the Civil Rights Movement. It never amounted to any kind intellectual movement like Neoconservatism - it was simply backlash.

[dameocrat67]

22. Humphrey was war hawk so the left did abandon him

but it is simply true with Carter.

[Jack Rabbit]

24. Before they were Reagan Democrats, they were Wallace voters

There's nothing elite about them.

Neoconservatives are elites in the worst sense of the word: they have all kinds of crazy ideas and no practical experience or common sense. Haven't you noticed that most of them were Yale-educated chickenhawks?

[WinkyDink]

25. Isn't this well-known? Liberals were NEVER, nor ever COULD have been, for Reagan!!!

[LWolf]

26. Neoliberals. nt